I am the They/Them your parents warned you about

she wakes up, tries to shake it off and splashes some water in her face, but when she looks in the mirror there he is.

silently staring at her over her shoulder in a uniform that has yet to be created. she doesn't know why or how, none of it makes sense, and he doesn't say a word. somehow she knows, though, she knows her dream wasn't just a dream, and that the ghost is a prophecy, a warning.

so she tries to keep everyone safe, tries to make sure that they will all live, that grace will watch the launch by her side, that she gets to keep him on earth and alive.

the ghost doesn't budge. it follows her, and she sees it in light beams and mirrors, in the back of a crowd, in empty rooms. first, she tries to ignore it. then, she attempts to bargain with it, but not a word comes from his lips.

the more time passes, the more desperate she gets, losing control in rooms that aren't really empty, looking at herself in the mirror but into eyes that aren't hers. throwing a glass at him and it flies right through him before shattering against the wall.

"tell me! tell me how to keep him from turning into you."

"are you going to stay, at least? when he's gone?" quieter, defeated, at the end of long days, and the ghost just tilts his head.

everything goes to shit, people die, and she runs towards the explosion thinking this is how i kill him.

the night before she tells him he is going to die, that he is the only solution she has, she talks to it again. she was made to carry the world and yet failed to change the fate of the one person that she has come to care for the most.

"does it matter? that i tried? that i did everything i could to keep him?"

the ghost, of course, does not answer, making her question if she ever tried at all or just told herself lie after lie to still lie awake at night, wondering.

the love was there, but did it matter? did it change anything? was there a point to it if it will always play out as a tragedy? was it really a warning or simply punishment for choices she had yet to make?

fate spins along anyway. his fate was spinning and stretching until she was handed a pair of scissors and told at any cost.

Question for the larger PHM fandom. In the book we see Stratt make some hard and morally gray choices that end up having legal consequences. Like, she says she will likely spend the rest of her life in jail.

Grace and Rocky on their way to Erid and Grace is down to eating just coma slury and taumeba

Grace moarnfully staring at his bowl of taumeba soup: I miss eggs. I would love an omelet right now.

Rocky: Eggs, question? Grace have eggs on Earth, question? Grace parent, question?! Also what is omelet, question?

Grace: No no no, Rock I'm not a parent, I miss eating eggs.

Rocky freezes: GRACE EAT UNBORN BABIES, QUESTION!?!?!?!

And Grace has to try explain that he eats infertilized chicken eggs.

Rocky: So human eat eggs of animal that do not hatch, question? So no eat animal babies, question?

“No.”

And this kid rolls his eyes because DUH and he says “Why not?” all cranky-styles, so I said

“Because you don’t need to go to the bathroom, you’re bored and you need to move. If you need to move, tell me and I’ll let you know if we’re at a part of the test where we can pause. Like, for example, we can pause right now if you wanna race me around the building.”

and it applies to so much!!!! i try to take whatever i’m beating myself up over, like “i haven’t been eating enough veggies lately so i suck as a human,” and instead reframe it as “my body deserves all the important nutrients found in vegetables” and suddenly i’m ten billion times more inclined to actually prioritize eating more veggies

Like, we know it started back when the august clan declared the second roman empire, and the tell clan took the military's side, and the harsh feelings continue to the present time, almost 200 years later

But something that we didn't find out until the end of drago 2781 is that tellon blaze's wife was from the August clan.

The Tell Clan and the Blaze clan are considered sister clans, and we have to assume that the relationship between the Tell clan and August clan must have been just as close until the Artmis situation, right?

And like - Thetis happened in 2510, and the second roman empire was declared in 2605, less than a century later.

There were people alive in the August clan who had grown up in the same clan hall as Tellon Blaze's wife. The two clans had only just barely diverged.

the reviews are in... glad everyone's enjoying song of the worm

Cook, Eliza (1818 - 1889)

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the dress has always been gold

r u saying this doesn't look white and gold to u???

Instead of a spaceship it’s a simple, unmanned probe that isn’t anything new to humanity. The only change from a previous one is that it uses an astrophage engine and includes and extra part in its message.